Clinging to my gods and my guns while I chronicle the demise of western civilization from my bunker deep in the woods of northern Canada.

Thursday, 10 January 2013

Eating Crawlers For Dinner

The left over roast beef I was going to feed people for dinner tonight got
eaten in sandwiches at noon leaving me in a bit of a quandary as to what I was
going to dish up tonight. About mid afternoon my sister gave my parents a
package of frozen lobster meat she had picked up in the market. I gave that one
look and went back and bought another. Tonight's dinner was lobster stew. It
just doesn't get any better than that. If you are from Maine you understand. If
you are not you never will.

Many of my earliest memories are of family lobster dinners at my grandparents
house. We ate them steamed. We ate them in stew. We fried them. We ate them in
lobster rolls.

My Grandparents house at 1 Campbell Street,
Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

As much as I love sitting down to a steamed lobster and a bowl of butter
with a splash of vinegar in it perhaps my favorite meal is lobster stew. If we
had a lobster feast one day we would have a stew the next made from any leftover
lobster and from picking out the bodies, Grandmother would make it in the early
afternoon and then let it stand until dinner to 'flavor up.'

Lobsters at my grandparents house. L to R: Me,
Uncle Wink, Uncle Duane, my grandfather, Dad, my grandmother. Doesn't everyone
hold up the dinner they are about to eat for the picture?

I am quite sure there are nor many people in northern Canada eating lobster
tonight although a few of the Newfies working the tar sands over at the Fort
might be picking their way through some.

Tonight will be the coldest night of the year.
Lobster stew is warming. It warms the body and the memories warm the soul
although these old photos also bring a touch of sadness.

All of my Dad's family, his parents and his
brothers, are all dead now. These pictures mean something to me, to my parents,
to my cousin Elizabeth but the world moves on and for the most part these people
are forgotten. They live on only in a few hearts.

Tonight is not a "Break" but it will be close. Tess
is on shift change so I will stay here at my folks tonight. It may be only 6:00
p.m. but I am about to don my P.J.'s and settle in for the evening and relax
barring knowing that barring some emergency I don't have to go out later. I do
have to get up just as early as usualy in the morning. I have to pick son-in-law
Acea up and bring him to town. He gets a pain treatment tomorrow.